Paddy Lowe to leave McLaren for Mercedes later this year

Although Mercedes declined to comment on the situation, sources have revealed that a deal has been agreed in principle for him to switch camps ahead of the 2014 campaign.

The confirmation of Lowe's departure makes it likely that he will now be put on gardening leave by his current team until the end of this year, with McLaren having now appointed Tim Goss as its new technical director.

It is not clear exactly what role Lowe will take at Mercedes, as the team already has three technical directors in place, but he is likely to assume a more senior management role at the outfit.

There had been speculation earlier this year that Lowe was being lined up for the team principal role at Mercedes, with it being suggested that the new management structure of Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda was even looking at ousting Ross Brawn.

However, talk that the current team principal's position was under immediate threat was strongly denied, while Brawn revealed that he had been involved in talks with Lowe about joining the outfit.

Brawn said that the idea of attracting Lowe was aimed more at the longer term, as he looked to put in place a succession plan for when he did decide to call time on his F1 career.

AUTOSPORT has learned that the likelihood of Brawn staying on for the foreseeable future has increased over recent weeks, however, as relations between the senior management at the outfit have bedded down well since Wolff's arrival.

Brawn said at the Jerez test earlier this month that thoughts about his future had stopped being a topic for him, as he was settled in terms of what was happening.

In an interview with the official F1 website on Monday, Brawn suggested that bolstering the number of senior managers at Mercedes would not lead to confusion as long as everyone had clearly defined roles.

"It can be a problem if everybody tries to do the same thing!" he said. "It is important to have clear areas of responsibility. I am responsible for the sporting side; running the team on an operational level. If we can maintain that then there will not be a problem."